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Darwin's Radio
Greg Bear is indisputably one of the preeminent "hard" science fiction writers working today. His past writings have taken ideas from many areas of contemporary scientific research and spun them into fantastic universes. Blood Music and Queen of Angels, aside from being absolutely engrossing tales, helped nanotechnology enter the mainstream vocabulary. In addition to his excellent treatment of science, the development of his characters seldom suffers at the hands of his concepts, and it is always the characters that make the story rewarding. His latest effort is no exception. Darwin's Radio sets complex and believable characters in a story that puts forth a convincing theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolution.
Darwin's Radio is set just after the (not-even-slightly apocalyptic) turn of the millenium in a universe that is recognizably our own. The story revolves around Kaye Lang, a brilliant molecular biologist who specializes in the study of retroviruses. Specifically, she studies endogenous retroviruses - RNA-based viruses that integrate their genetic material into the host's DNA, becoming part of the host's genome. As the book opens, Lang is on a trip to the former Soviet republic of Georgia, trying to win the cooperation of local scientists in a business venture. On a side trip to investigate a recently discovered mass grave filled with the bodies of pregnant women, she meets Christopher Dicken, a virus hunter for the Centers for Disease Control. Dicken is on the trail of a peculiar illness (eventually known as "Herod's Flu") that seems only to strike young pregnant women and cause miscarriages. Soon after her return to the United States, Kaye finds a media spotlight as other researchers discover that Herod's Flu is actually a Scattered Human Endogenous retroVirus Activation - SHEVA - which she predicted. SHEVA soon reaches epidemic levels around the world, causing virtually every pregnant woman to miscarry.
Meanwhile, two fortune-seeking mountaineers lead anthropologist Mitch Rafelson to a startling discovery in the Austrian Alps - a mummified Neanderthal man and woman with a human baby. Mitch sees the Neandertal family as direct evidence of the speciation of Homo sapiens and soon intuits a connection among his discovery, the Georgian mass grave and SHEVA. Already discredited by a previous fiasco with Native American remains, and held in suspicion for the company he kept in the Alps, Mitch is unable to influence the scientific inquiry into his discovery. However, he does eventually connect with Christopher and Kaye, who are working to explain and control SHEVA amid increasingly panicked reactions from the general population. Lang initially assists the federal government's efforts, but never really supports the view that SHEVA is a disease. Like Mitch, she's convinced that the virus is an agent of change for humanity.
I don't think I'm spoiling the book by stating that the story concerns human evolution. If the title doesn't give it away, a cursory glance at the dust jacket reveals comments like Anne McCaffery's: "WOW!...a human upgrade..." In the first 150 pages or so, through Mitch and Kaye's eyes, Bear gives the reader enough evidence to draw the conclusion that SHEVA is responsible for the human baby born to the Neanderthals and will soon create the next evolution of humans. However, he doesn't grace Christopher Dicken and his fellows in the CDC with the same insight. The government continues to treat SHEVA as a pathogen that threatens humanity's existence (which is not an altogether incorrect viewpoint). The CDC can't prevent the miscarriages, and Bear provides a vivid depiction of the violence that results from the government's inability to accept the truth and communicate it to the people.
This novel provides an excellent story as well as some new concepts to ponder. The evolutionary ideas Bear puts forth, aside from sounding extremely plausible (to this non-microbiologist), provoke some very entertaining thoughts. Humans have spent the last hundred years or so modifying nature to suit ourselves. We're used to dealing with problems that we inflict on ourselves. How do we react when nature modifies us? This conflict forms a vibrant backdrop for the human story - the political ambitions that blind Christopher to the true nature of SHEVA, Kaye's brilliance in research and naivete in practically ever other pursuit, Mitch's frustration as his past prevents him from persuading other scientists to his point of view. Bear renders the romance (yes, there's romance) between two major characters compellingly without being lurid, with a bit of unrequited love as garnish. The plot motors along, but gives the reader some time to consider the implications of evolving humans as the government's efforts to "cure" SHEVA patients goes nowhere. Even then, the author entertains us with nonviolent protests, outright riots, and pagan fertility rites. Bear's prose is crisp, if not quite up to the stratospherically high standards he set in Queen of Angels. The ending, while not totally unsatisfying, leaves several questions unanswered and is wide open for a sequel. This is not necessarily a Bad Thing, since Darwin's Radio presents a world that will certainly bear further exploration.
Pick this book up at Amazon
Huh? When an author goes to every possible extent to ensure his story fits in with the currently understood model of physics, should we just forget that fact and move on? The stories are as bound by the laws of physics as the author wants them to be. For Greg Bear, the science is an intricate part of the story, so the accuracy is important. There's no reason to ignore it - in fact, Bear doesn't want us to ignore it.
By your argument, all classes of fiction are just fiction - historical fiction is fiction. Horror is fiction. Romance novels are fiction. Well of course they are! How else are we going to seperate Greg Bear from Ray Bradbury from Jackie Collins if we don't label their works? If, in fact, we don't use the very labels they give themselves!
If you want to argue whther or not Bear should be classified as hard science fiction, fine. But don't just dismiss the whole category out of hand.
Here's a link to my review.
See subject. This is generally something taught by guest speakers at churches to folks who don't know any better, who then repeat it to those who do.
Rather unfortunate, that.
I seriously doubt you'll find any of the better-informed creationists embracing that belief.
(Oh... you wonder how I manage to believe in creationism? I just don't interpret things in quite as bounded a manner as many of my fellows... that is to say, I'm more than glad to believe that, for instance, God created the universe by selecting it from the series of all possible ones. I suppose this could be almost termed a meta-creation... how the 0-stage creation itself occured is not necessarily relevant. Of course, the possability I just threw out has interesting implications for free will and the like; I'm offering it as an example of compatibility, not as a belief I espouse).
I disagree. Let me start out by saying your post SHOULD NOT have been moderated to Flamebait. It's certainly on topic, and while it will probably draw considerable fire, Flamebait it ain't.
That being said, I need this term! Without it I could be saddled with crappy Piers Anthony books (no offense to the legions of 13 year olds who seem to enjoy them!) and no way to tell them apart from the good stuff.
Hard Science Fiction is just that... fiction. Part of the fun lies in finding the scientific errors and debunking them.
Take Ringworld for example. As an abtract idea, it's brilliant! An artifical ecosystem that offers the benefits of a planet on a huge scale. The first novel however, left glaring holes in it's implemenation. (The ring world is unstable! The ring world is unstable!) Erosion, instability, and numerous other snafus were detected and addressed in the next novel (which also contained it's share of snafus).
Hard Science Fiction, while giving us a healthy dose of entertainment, also gives us an opportunity to exercise our intellect and decide for ourselves what's plausible, possible, and probable.
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I never came away from his novels with that impression. The impression that all humans would be expected to undergoes some form of psychotherapy, yes. Given the touchy feely attitude prevalent in today's society, and the fact that it's just getting worse I think it makes for a rather realistic (and scary!) view of the future.
He's also partial to his main characters NOT requiring this help. Look at Olmy in Eon for example. He's entirely self-contained, extremely private, and considered somewhat anarchistic by his peers. A throwback, but a necessary throwback. I think what he's saying is fiddling and fixing is all well and good, but shit gets done by unmodified, crazy humans. ;) Larry Niven takes the same slant in his Known Space stories (at least the pre-Man-Kzin war stories) where the ARM pretty much runs the show and keeps the population uninformed and conditioned. Who runs the ARM? Old men who are not well adjusted by their own standards. Who does the dirty work? Borderline wackos and paranoids kept in check with medicines.
It's the wackos that get things done, and I don't want anyone messing with my head either! ;)
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Have to disagree. John Cramer, author of ``Einstein's Bridge'' and ``Twistor'', is a working physicist when he's not writing. Those two novels are full of references to current scientific theories. At least one of the novels I mentioned has an appendix that describes the relationships between those theories and the concepts used in the story.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I think we should discontinue all further use of the term "hard science fiction" - there are NO hard sci-fi writers, even among those (like Bear) with strong science groundings. Let's enjoy these books for what they are - great stories - but remember they're works of fiction and fantasy, not bound by the laws of physics.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
Has Bear undergone a lot of therapy in his life? I don't know that much about his past.
Besides, we non-social geek types will probably be the first to get "corrected". :(
Read a good book lately?
Read a good book lately?
Who the fsck tells you this?
:-)
Try spending some time in talk.origins.
Assuming this isn't a strawman of sorts, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of my fellows.
Oh, nobody (least of all me) is trying to attribute the rabidness of the most fundamentalist creationists to creationists as a whole. There are plenty of zealots who are only too willing to resort to vague threats to try to get their point across. Nevertheless, the sentence of mine that you quoted was overly sarcastic and was, in retrospect, ill-advised. Please consider it stricken from the record.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Ok, for years I have heard poeple say that evolution violates the second law.
.. 'kay? Thanks.
Evolution violates the Creationists' Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is the law that says that things tend to progress from order to disorder, and since evolution says that the opposite is true, it must violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Now, this conveniently ignores such pesky terminology as "closed system", and for the sake of simplicity, minor things such as the Sun are not factored in. (Incidentally, I wonder if any of the creationists who claim that order cannot come from disorder in nature have ever seen a snowflake.)
Anyway, you might want to check this link out:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability
It is only my intention to provide more information related to this query; it is not my intention to ignite some drawn-out thread about religion versus science in a place where it is clearly inappropriate. So creationists, before you condemn me, allow me to pre-emptively point out that I know that I am truly a horrible person, and that I am condemning myself to everlasting pain, and that as far as I'm concerned, all of you people are completely right and modern science is completely wrong
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I mean really, what I consider a romance and what some unfulfilled housefrau considers a romance are two different things.
What I consider fantasy, some people interpret as religious truth, and vice versa.
And let's get rid of that pesky Dewey Decimal system, classifications are bad.
And let's get rid of book titles too, since they can be misleading. An author can name his book just about anything she or he wants, it doesn't necessarily have to relate to the book matter in the way I think it does.
So we'll end up with a huge mass of undifferentiated, unorganized texts, but we won't offend anyone.
Please Chris, I understand that "hard science fiction" may break the rules of physics, but it is fiction after all, and as a science fiction reader I appreciate the way the genre is divided into hard, cyberpunk, soft, fantasy, alternate history, etc. It makes it easier for me to find a book that I will enjoy, and avoid the sub-genres that I don't like.
Thanks,
George
So, do you consider "Romantic Fiction" to be an inherent contradiction too, simply because it doesn't take you out to dinner and send you flowers? :-)
I don't want Romantic Fiction to take me out to dinner and buy me flower, I want it to crack Microsoft for me.
George
I think maybe you might reliese evolution as a theory is majorly flawed. Just read and understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.. and you might see why.. this is why i cant understand why authors persist to promote this bad science in their works... oh when will it end.
Hey AC, the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to evolution because the Earth is not a closed control volume, you have scads of energy pouring in from the Sun, a far lesser amount emanating from the Earth, matter falling on the Earth and a far lesser amount leaving the Earth.
The Earth and the Sun taken together as one control volume are closer to a closed system. The increasing complexity of life on the Earth is more than balanced by the increasing entropy on the sun, and soon (universally speaking) when all the hydrogen on the sun is gone and it swells into a red giant, we'll see that.
Do you know anything about thermodynamics besides what you parrot of web pages? My qualifications come from several thermo courses I passed to get my BS in Aerospace Engineering.
George
Unless maybe your story ends at the Omega Point like Charles Sheffield's strange and interesting Tommorrow and Tomorrow, though I guess even that has room for a sequal of sorts.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
IIRC, Shiva is much more than the god of destruction. He is usually depicted holding a flower in one of his (many) hands, and is considered a consummate artist, musician, and lover, as well. In most world religions, gods who bring destruction do so only to prepare for new creation.
(And what's wrong with an author using this name to pull in such a rich cultural reference, anyway?)
Just because Bear creates such a society doesn't mean he's advocating it. He may just be extrapolating what he sees of current trends out a couple of years.
:)
Robert Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers, in which the charachters lived in a fascist state. A Lot of the book was spent on *why* that state was the way it was and what rights it and the citizens within it had, but Heinlein wasn't advocating such a state; he firmly believed in freedom of the individual. He had simply created an interesting idea and was exploring the possibilities; that's what fiction authors are supposed to do.
I see in the preview I mispelled something in my sig.. Natch
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
I much preferred Blood Music.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Well-said, sir. Moderator...
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
You can disprove the creationist version of thermodynamics right in your own home. All you need is some potting soil (preferably sterilized so you have no other living stuff in there), some seedling plants, and a big bottle or balloon you can seal adequately for use as a terrarium. (A 5-gallon springwater bottle will probably do.) Put the seedlings into the bottle, give them adequate light, and keep them from overheating. Add water and carbon dioxide as needed, and some inorganic plant food (nitrates, phosphates, potash) now and then.
After a while your seedlings will have turned this input of purely inorganic, high-entropy stuff (and light) into a lot of low-entropy plant mass and oxygen. The grown plant is a lot more organized than the matter which went into it. So doesn't this violate the 2nd Law? No. The ignored input is sunlight, which has very low entropy. Some part of the sunlight which is absorbed by the plant's leaves gets turned into useful energy, but the rest of it comes out as heat. A given amount of energy in the form of heat at room temperature has much higher entropy than the same amount of energy as sunlight. So the Earth merrily absorbs low-entropy sunlight at the effective temperature of about 5700 Kelvin, and radiates high-entropy heat at the effective temperature of about 250 Kelvin. The Earth is constantly creating and radiating entropy, and some of that entropy has been extracted from disordered matter when it is organized by some process (biological or otherwise). So there's nothing at all in thermodynamics which rules out the increasing organization of life over time, so long as the Sun continues to shine.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I had the same feelings about the ending of Darwin's Radio as the reviewer. When I loaned my copy of the book to my girlfriend I told her that I thought the ending was not entirely what I would have liked. Not bad, just not what I had hoped for.
Being hooked into the Seattle SF scene, my girlfriend asked around and found out that Greg Bear does have a sequel planned. Meaning that the ending is intended to set up the next part of the story.
Jack
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